


A Promise In The Dark

by Marzi



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Gen, References to Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-22
Updated: 2013-06-22
Packaged: 2017-12-15 17:52:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/852343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marzi/pseuds/Marzi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Damn it, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a zombie hunter."</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Promise In The Dark

_“Bones. Bones. Booooonneessss.”  
  
He was pulling, struggling, screaming and clawing- he was just right there he had to get to him. He could. He had to, he was the only one left-_  
  
The dreams were easier to handle. Almost. Waking up and having the strangled, low moaning calls morph into the voices of the damned around him got a little confusing. And irritating.  
  
 _“Brains. Brains. Braaaaaaaiiinesss.”  
  
Blank, glassy eyes, some oozing. Grasping, bloated hands. Wailing masses as they were dragged under._  
  
Okay. Maybe the dreams weren't easier. Things were just bad in general. If bad was the word for it.  
  
Doctor Leonard Horatio 'Bones' McCoy was having a hard time pinning down what exactly constituted 'bad' these days. He rolled over on the sickbed he occupied, sleep eluding him. The medbay was dark, but he could still see the outlines of the mess from all the strewn equipment and supplies. He'd stopped trying to keep the place tidy after he'd lost his last nurse. It was just him now, in the dark. Him and his promise.  
  
Thoughts had stopped being good company these days, though. He often found himself staring down at a hypo, knowing that one injection would stop this nonsense. Well, stop it in that he wouldn't have to deal with it anymore. And what would that make him? There was no one left to give up on, they were all dead. It wasn't cowardice, it was practical. Even if Starfleet did find the Enterprise, they would blow the ship apart before they bothered with the rescue of one man. Hopefully they would blow the ship. Bones wasn't sure if they were still transmitting their quarantine message.  
  
Uhura used to check the signal, let them know that they were still broadcasting, that there was still hope. Bones always had the sneaking suspicion that the captain had spoken to her about the transmissions; about spreading a message of hope, so that the crew would not lose themselves. There had been no real way for her to know about the transmissions from where they had holed themselves up. She had gone down trying to get Scotty out of engineering, when they had lost the aft of the ship. Now he missed her comforting daily reports.  
  
Hell, he even missed the Hobgoblin these days. The captain had taken the half-Vulcan down himself, after Spock had gone mad after attempting a mind meld with one of the creatures. He'd killed three security officers and broken Jim's arm before succumbing. Jim had wanted to give him a proper send off, via-airlock into space. With less than twenty of them left by then, they had ended up stuffing his body into a trash chute in order to send it out to the stars. It had seemed the better option next to dragging him into the hallway to be eaten by former crewmen.  
  
The banging against his doors prompted Bones to sit up, pushing aside the thermal blankets. That life support was still running on the ship was remarkable. Environment controls had started to fail two days ago though, and it was getting damned cold. Bones harbored the hope that the horde would freeze to death, though he knew if it ever got that bad, he would be dead himself. And if he died before he could fulfill his promise, what kind of man did that make him?  
  
It was ridiculous that he had lived this long. That he hadn't been one of the first to fall, what with all the initial cases being rushed to him. The medical staff should have been some of the first to go once the epidemic started. Yet somehow, here he was.  
  
The banging rattled the debris he had pushed against the door in order to make a blockade. He glared at it through the gloom.  
  
Was there even enough power left for him to open the door? Would he have to pry it open? Wait for them to break through? He didn't have enough food left to wait to find out. If he delayed too long, he would be too weak to do anything other than lay down and let them swarm over him.  
  
He had to go down swinging, as much as he dreaded the thought. Wrapping one of the blankets around himself, he shuffled across the floor, barely bothering to lift his feet. Broken containers and bits of papers (test results back from when he was still trying to find a cure) crunched under his shoes. He never took off his shoes anymore. He had to be prepared to run, even when sleeping, or trying to sleep, as was more often the case.  
  
 _“Brains. Braaaiiiinnnss.”_  
  
“Oh be quiet, would you?”  
  
His voice was so hoarse he wondered if he had even managed to really speak. He chose to believe he was still capable of talking. He picked through the belts laid out on a broken scanner, finally closing his hands around a phaser. They didn't do much against the horde, not unless you broke them open and overcharged them, blasting small holes through the monsters like an uncivilized cretin with a projectile. Some standards were stripped away in the face of certain death. Bones took a hypo from the tray, securing it to his belt.  
  
When he fell, and he would fall, he would not let himself feel it when he was torn apart.  
  
 _“Brains. Brains. Braaaiins.”_  
  
He turned back towards the barricade, dropping his blanket. His hand was sticky on the handle of the phaser. Sweat or blood, he didn't know. It had been too long since he'd been clean.  
  
 _“Bones. Booones.”_  
  
“Damn it, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a zombie hunter.”  
  
But a promise was a promise.  
  
There was a bloodied gold shirt outside the medbay doors, and he had to find it. He'd promised his captain that he would go down with his ship. He'd promised his friend that he wouldn't leave him a walking shamble.  
  
Bones had always believed that he would die alone. He'd never imagined it would be quite like this.


End file.
